Run It Back
The conservative push to demonize the face of the nation's Covid-19 response has returned to its misinformation roots
The release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s personal musings, private communications, and messaging history by Senate Republicans has proved fertile ground to revive right-wing hysteria and antipathy toward the man who became the face of the nation’s Covid-19 response.
On Monday, the New York Post published an article claiming that Fauci “privately warned of miscarriage risk linked to COVID vaccine while publicly claiming no issues.” The article was based on messages from January 2021, obtained and released by Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in which Fauci spoke to former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy reports that the Covid-19 vaccine could potentially carry a miscarriage risk for pregnant women.
Right wingers, already looking for an excuse to prosecute Fauci, seized on the messages, claiming they were proof that the virologist and other officials in charge of the Covid response “knew they were harming and killing babies,” as Kate Johnson, the wife of influencer Benny Johnson, put it. Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), wrote that it was time to “PUT FAUCI IN JAIL,” noting that she had had a miscarriage during the pandemic. NewsNation host Katie Pavlich — formerly of Fox News — described the vaccines as an effective “abortion shot,” citing a repeatedly debunked misinterpretation of vaccine data.
